The public face of climate science practiced by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), and their offspring the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were for a political agenda and only secondarily for the money it engendered. However, their methods were made much more effective by magazines and journals who promoted their flawed science primarily for money and sometimes secondarily for politics. Magazines and Journals, often with considerable influence, latched on like giant sucker fish to further themselves not to promote truth, accuracy, and public understanding.

There was a time when Scientific American (SA)occupied a unique niche on the newsstands. It was a magazine about science for the public. It was genuine science usually written by scientists, not a popular pseudo-science magazine like all the others. It was interesting because most people did not understand much of what was written…

Sea ice off the southern Labrador coast hasn’t been this high for this date in 20 years: that’s great news for the harp and hooded seals that will give birth at the Front in another few weeks – for a while anyway, because a bumper crop of baby seals is also good news for the polar bears who gather there to eat them.

So brutal, but true. The polar bear must gorge over the short Arctic spring and early summer to survive the rest of the year.

Sea ice coverage off Southern Labrador for the week of 19 February (the latest date available) 1969-2016, is the highest since 1996; courtesy the Canadian Ice Service:

Sea ice coverage off Newfoundland for the week of 19 February 1969-2016, shows amounts just below average:

Sea ice coverage for Canada for the 25th of February 2016, courtesy the Canadian Ice Service:

If policy is driven by petulant, infantile ideology, instead of cool-headed economics, the result is, without exception, an unmitigated disaster. Here’s a nice little wrap-up based on the latter policy approach, that unpicks the falsehoods of the former.

(Guaranteed) power to the people
Scientific Alliance
12 February 2016

This week saw the opening of a massive energy project centred on Shetland. A consortium led by the French energy company Total has invested £3.5bn in extracting gas from deep undersea over 100 km west of the islands, receiving it onshore at a new complex adjacent to the existing Sullom Voe oil terminal, and then feeding it into the UK mainland gas grid. According to the report “the Shetland Gas Plant is said by its operator Total to be capable of supplying energy to two million homes” (Total turns on gas…

No, not a parody. The Climate Council really has invited Australian warmists to spend more than $7500 for a luxury cruise, gassing with Tim Flannery:

As part of this adventure, you will join renowned scientist and former Australian of the Year, Professor Tim Flannery – the Climate Council’s Chief Councillor – on the adventure of a lifetime along the remote Kimberley coast…

Best of all, by taking part in this expedition, you’ll be stepping up to help provide Australians with a vital source of correct and informed information on climate change…

Taxpayers have forked out ­almost $13,000 for South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill, his department’s chief executive and two political staffers to stay in a five-star hotel for the Paris climate change talks in December.

During the late 19th century, the US averaged more than two hurricane strikes per year, but over the past decade has averaged less than one per year. Perhaps Exxon should get a tax break for saving the climate?

Grim predictions of the imminent demise of polar bears – their “harsh prophetic reality” as it’s been called – have been touted since at least 2001. But such depressing prophesies have so widely missed the mark they can now be said to have failed.

While polar bears may be negatively affected by declines in sea ice sometime in the future, so far there is no convincing evidence that any unnatural harm has come to them. Indeed, global population size (described by officials as a “tentative guess“) appears to have grown slightly over this time, as the maximum estimated number was 28,370 in 1993 (Wiig and colleagues 1995; range 21,470-28,370) but rose to 31,000 in 2015 (Wiig and colleagues 2015, [pdf here] aka 2015 IUCN Red List assessment; range 20,000-31,000).